Robert Macpherson
Via de Sugherari, the Theatre of Marcellus, Rome
About this artwork
Contrary to his usual practice of taking exposures which lasted several hours or even days, here Macpherson has used a short exposure to lay the blurring shadows across the building and allow the sun to light the objects in the metalworker's workshop. This offers us a picture, not so much of the grand Theatre of Marcellus, the obvious subject of the photograph, but of modern life, lived like a hermit crab in the grand surroundings of ancient Rome.
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title:Via de Sugherari, the Theatre of Marcellus, Rome
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accession number:PGP 32.3
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artist:
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materials:Albumen print
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date created:About 1860
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measurements:40.40 x 29.10 cm
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credit line:Purchased 1990
Robert Macpherson
Robert Macpherson
Robert Macpherson originally trained as a surgeon, but then took up a career as a painter. He moved to Rome around 1840, and practised there both as a landscape painter and art dealer. In the mid-1840s he identified and bought a Michelangelo painting, which he subsequently smuggled out of the…